Not A Topical Climate

This is going to be one of those posts where I ramble and do not adhere to any particular topic because I feel like chatting about some things.
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Saturday night, we went out on a date night because we found out about a bar/arcade that features the old 80's arcade games as well as pinball. We played Galaga, Asteroids, Ms. PacMan, Donkey Komg and Frogger as well as a few other games as well as pinball and skeeball. The weather was perfect and they had the place sort of open air with two large garage type doors open to the patio. After we played some games we headed downtown to eat and play.
I love the crazy Texas topiary they have downtown. We went to the old City Streets which is called something else now and had some beers and played pool and wandered about. It was a fun date night.
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I have been unhappy with my current tupperware situation. And I don't mean Tupperware©. I use "tupperware" like I use "kleenex." Kleenex means "soft paper you blow your nose on" to me. But back to the tupperware. My plastic food storage containers, (see! tupperware is easier to say and type!) are ridiculously unorganized. Where they are currently stored requires me to stand on a step stool and have a hunting expedition. EVERY. TIME. So I have been mulling over this for a while and as usual, I got an idea. I will take before and after pictures when I do this - about 13 hours from now.
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Although I hate Thanksgiving, I somehow ended up volunteering to provide food for my in-laws. I have kept it super simple and it's only going to be four people so it's not so bad. The hardest part will be taking everything over to their house. And if you have just wondered, the answer is "No. It would not be easier to have them over here." Well, easier for me, but not for them.
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45 minutes ago I put an ad on Craigslist for something free. I want to get rid of a computer speaker set. And I am not kidding but I have already had EIGHT responses. One of them said "I can pick them up right now." Really? At 1:00 A freaking M? I've done this before and I met the guy in the afternoon in a CVS parking lot on the corner of a busy street. And I watched him drive away before I left. And then I didn't go straight home. I'm no dummy. That was for a box of pool and spa chemicals that we had after we had that spa taken out. And for these speakers I'm doing the same thing but also My Sweetie will be with me because I'm going for Saturday afternoon. While I have been typing this, I have already arranged for the Saturday thing and had two more e-mails. I guess some people really want some free stuff.
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Also I finally am getting near the end of this chair covering stuff. The third chair I covered was awful. As in "How not to recover a chair" awful. So that is now the chair in my smoking room. So after the third chair, I guess I was gun shy. I kept saying, "I need to be in the zone." Well apparently today (Tuesday) I was in the zone because I did my best chair yet. I wanted to go ahead and do the 5th chair after that because it was ready, but I had an accidental nap. And the 6th and last chair has not been stripped down yet. I will get there eventually. And I've taken lots of pictures.
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And now I am all topiced out. Topicked? Topicced? Topict? hmmmm

Time. How It Boggles.*

Today is Mom's birthday. My Sweetie and I went out for a date night, Saturday night, and as we were cruising down the highway, I was thinking: So 73 years ago, my grandmother was a 26 year old woman with two little kids and at full burst pregnancy with mom. (I really can't picture grandma as a 26 year old person.)

By the way, I finally figured out why I never liked my grandmother. I can usually come up with things, but they never really explain how I feel. I realized after all this time that in my entire lifetime, I never heard my grandmother laugh. And she never smiled. Oh yeah there are a few photographs, but that's just for the photographer. Who doesn't laugh or smile? Ick. But enough of that.

Today is Mom's birthday. Mom was no June Cleaver. If Mom had to be described in comparison to TV people, she would have been a combination of Laura Petrie, Mary Richards, Edith Bunker and Della Street. Yeah, an unusual combination, but that's how real people are.

I really love Mom and I'm so happy she's still here. I can't believe Mom is 73. Time is a weird thing.

Mom laughs and smiles. I love that in a person. And I love my Mom.

(*I stole the word "boggles" from Jazz.)

My Weird Dreams

I always have the strangest, most vivid dreams. This morning when I woke up, I was straight out of a long dream where I was a student at some sort of audio/visual school. There were all these banks of VCRs and monitors and we were all comparing our work and, of course, it all seemed perfectly normal. When I woke up I was all, "What the heck was that? An audio/visual school from 1993?" I thought it was weird that my dream self did not realize that all the equipment was so outdated.

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I wonder why I have no sense of the date in my dreams. Sometimes my daughter (who is 27) will be 5 years old in a dream and my dream self doesn't even notice. Or Dad, who died in 1998, is in the dream and my dream self doesn't freak out - it all seems perfectly normal. Dreams are so odd. At least I don't get the tidal waves anymore.

I Am Not Kidding

My Sweetie opened that bottle for me and pulled out that cotton. We did not fluff it up or anything. That's just how it came out of the bottle. It was crazy. Like a clown car. If the car was a vitamin C bottle and the clowns were cotton. And there are actual vitamin C tablets in that bottle. Lots of them. It was very strange.

Guess What I Did Friday

Good Blood

So I got the letter from my doctor regarding my latest blood work and I was very very happy to read that my liver is fine. I do so love my beer but I like my liver also. Also my kidneys are fine, which are things I rarely think about but my doctor had said that he was concerned because of one of my medicines. So that was good. The only negative thing in the letter was my bad cholesterol, the LDL was a little high. It was followed by these lines: Avoid the fried foods and foods with lots of butter or cream. Watch out for high fat dairy products as well.
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Really? I could go months without fried foods but I love butter, cream sauces, cheese sauces. Havarti cheese? yum yum yum. I suppose this would be good reason number 18 to start walking on my treadmill regularly. My excuse that it was too hot all summer was sound, but has now expired. Trying to reduce my LDL seems like a more interesting challenge than trying to lose 20 pounds, so I think I just may have the incentive I've always needed.
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The most interesting thing about the letter was that my doctor had actually hand written my address on the envelope. I bet it had to be hand canceled. I can't imagine the electronic reader at the post office could read it. Heck, they probably had to take it to a pharmacist.

Shoes and Synchronicities

I decided I wanted some black leather tennis shoes for winter and as usual after trying on five or so pairs of shoes, I felt dejected and so ambled over to the men's section where I found these great Pumas:
Yep. More man shoes for me. They are so comfy. I can see why man shoes are so much more expensive than lady shoes: They are way more comfortable and way better made. On the other hand I have funky Fred Flintstone feet. My daughter's feet are so narrow, she could probably put both of her feet in this shoe if her feet weren't so long. We have opposite feet. That actually works out great if one of us buys the wrong shoes. But enough of that.
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I've talked about synchronicity a lot. I am especially attuned to it. It all started last week when I watched Drumline while I was eating lunch. I had seen it once before, just after it came out eight or nine years ago. I was thinking: Who is this kid? I love this guy! So I looked him up and found out it was Nick Cannon. Well I knew Mariah Carey married Nick Cannon and I knew he hosted a TV talent show but I didn't really know who he was. And then all of a sudden, just a few days later Nick Cannon pops up on two of the talk shows I watch. Synchronicity.
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I also watched the movie 2012 and the German Chancellor was played by a blonde woman and I thought: That's cool they made the German Chancellor a woman. Yeah I know, the German Chancellor is a blonde woman, but I did not know that until a few days later when she popped up all over the news regarding the Greece bailout. Synchronicity. By the way, the actress playing her in 2012 was born in Vancouver - Merrilyn Gann. She also founded the Northern Light Theater in Edmonton.
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There were a couple more that I can't think of right now, and then Sunday night we were watching the TV show "Grimm" and a big bad wolf had eaten a college student in the woods. When the lead characters showed up they were told it was a girl and when they asked how they knew that, the cop on the scene said, "Lady's pink Nike." So this was just a few hours after I bought my latest man shoes and I turned to My Sweetie and asked, "So if all they find is my shoe, they'll think it was a guy?"

File Under: WHAT?!?

This picture is in the November 2011 issue of National Geographic:
The article is about buried warrior's gold from medieval times. The caption on the above picture states:
A figure pocked with nail holes may represent a horse - or a bear, or a boar, or even a wolf.
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Really? Really? I consider National Geographic to be a smart sciencey magazine and that's what they think that gold figurine is? Really? It's a freaking seahorse! It even has a little swim fin at the bottom. Or it could be a wolf. Or a boar. Yeah, no. I'm going with seahorse.

Halloween Was Fun! And Exhausting!

My Sweetie has school on Mondays and Wednesdays so he wasn't here Monday night, but my daughter came over for Halloween. We had a good time. I got a late start decorating. I think I started at 4:00 and everything seemed to take 1000 times longer than I remembered from three years ago. More than likely, I didn't start at 4:00 three years ago.
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It was also very warm and although I was wearing shorts, a Tee and had my hair up, I got so hot and sweaty I completely soaked a bandana that I was using to wipe my head.

I was running so behind I didn't bother to move the step ladder for the picture and I didn't get to put as much spider webbing on the porch that I wanted to. The funniest thing that happened was Carole called me (she lives two doors down) and said that a little boy had just come by and asked for extra candy for his sister. He said she got so scared at the house two doors down (mine!) that she wouldn't get out of the car. I think the reason my ghoul is so scary is because it is 6 feet tall. It's funny to think that an old shower caddy and some chicken wire could cause a little girl to not want to get out of her car. I'm sure she'll be fine.
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The fun part of the night was the crazy conversations my daughter and I were having between doorbell rings. The strange part of the whole thing was the next day. I had a good solid eight hours of sleep but I felt exhausted and even kind of hungover the next day. It was very odd because two years ago I spent Halloween partying on Bourbon Street and I was fine the next day and last year we dressed up and went to a World Series game. And I was fine the next day. If decorating my yard and handing out candy is so exhausting, I think next year I will just go back to New Orleans.

It's Halloween!

Today I'll be decorating my front porch and yard for the first time since 2008. I went all out that year and then the next year I went to New Orleans and then last year we were at the baseball game. I carved my pumpkin today. I think it looks better in person:
I spent most of Sunday afternoon finding things and organizing things to have them ready. I mean it's been three years. I'm doing a few new things this year and some of the old and I will have lots of pictures in a few days.
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So while I was running around doing all this stuff, Barney came in the house and was acting all nuts like he was on a bad acid trip. He went under the daybed in the library and was howling like a loon and My Sweetie went in there to "talk him down." He was finally able to pull him out from under the bed to do a full body check (a "cat scan" if you will) which he always does when Barney acts oddly. You know, because he's an indoor/outdoor cat so he checks for injuries. Well he was perfectly fine and even started purring but then went right back under the daybed.
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My Sweetie has a theory. He said, "I think it's the front door. It even scares me." It's this:

Thought Fissures

This may sound odd, but I hardly ever look at myself in the mirror. Often I will leave a public restroom and moments later think, "Damn! I forgot to check my face." Yeah I wear make up on the few days I go out and of course I apply that in front of a mirror but that's close-up work and when I'm done I'm done. And when I do my hair on those days, I'm just looking at my hair. So tonight I caught a glimpse of myself walking by a mirror and it weirded me out. It was a strange blast from the past.
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Apparently my last haircut was not new at all, but some old replay. I'm not happy about that. Besides, I think my hair is too long for my age. Or I can just go kinda Katharine Hepburn and wear my hair up all the time. I guess I should figure this out when I'm not so tired.
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Oh and today I ordered a "slib of rabs." And then later while we were watching the game, I said something else backwards and My Sweetie asked, "When they took that blood from you today, did they pull out some of your brains?" And by "they" he was not talking about vampires. I had a doctor appointment. It was a kind of head to toe "look see" I guess. He even touched the top of my foot and said my foot circulation was good. Well I could have told him that. Why else would my feet be so freaking hot?
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I guess because I turned 50 this year, the doctor has to watch for all sorts of things. And ask me to do strange things, which I don't want to go into. Test things I mean, not strange things with the doctor. And not strange per se, just things I'm not ready to do yet. But he was happy with my general health, blood pressure, lung sounds and whatnot. So maybe I should just keep not looking in the mirror and it will keep me healthy.

Ponies and Rangers

I went to the last home game of The World Series and we won and it was fabulous and I saw some big ponies. Life is good.

One Tired Puppy

Thursday we went to the Texas State Fair where I think I walked about 18 miles. It was great fun: One of those perfect days where everything falls into place and flows ever so smoothly.

Ha Ha! Look! Fried beer. No I did not try that. For some reason I did not try any of the weird fried concoctions, but My Sweetie loved the fried pumpkin pie, as did my neighbor Carole. (She was the one that told us about it.)

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So that was on Thursday. Friday was the usual Meals on Wheels delivery and grocery store trip. Then Saturday was day one of The World Series:

We lost that game and it was horrible but on Sunday we won. We were there for SIX hours on Sunday. And today we go back for game five. It's a very long walk from where we park to the stadium. I feel like I'm some sort of professional marathon walker now. I hope it's another great game. On Tuesday I think I will rest.

Halfway Point

Today is the halfway point of my 50th year and I am celebrating by going to the Texas State Fair. My 50th year has been quite good so far. I'm looking forward to the second half.

Thought Points

• At the baseball game Saturday night (which the Rangers won, winning the ALCS Championship thus advancing them to The World Series), I sat next to a 15 year old boy who was 6'5" and wearing a baseball glove. It's the safest I've ever felt sitting near third base.


• Two things about me really irritate my mother: 1) I wash a shirt (or any item of clothing) after wearing it only a few hours and 2) I don't eat breakfast food very often.


• "dim-witted simpleton" is not a redundancy if you are talking about my cat.


• Most foods labeled as "haute cuisine" are things I would never eat and seem ridiculous to me. Fried egg with carmelized squash and tomatillo salsa? Give me a break.


• One of the new shows that I enjoyed has already been canceled. What's the point of watching new shows? Why should we even bother? (It was "Free Agents.")


• It's supposed to be cool today - in the 60's. I'm still cynical about that.


• If I had to give my hair a nickname, it would be "Puff Daddy."


• I told my daughter today that I think that feet, like ears and noses continue to grow as we age. She did not like this idea.


• I hope I was wrong about the feet thing.
  

And I'm Back

On Monday I had lunch with a crowd of family members:
On Tuesday Loretta drove down:

This is from Monday again. My stepDad looks thrilled. And the ladies on the right are two aunts and my cousin:

After lunch on Monday, my cousin Jennifer drove me and my nephews over to the beach:

And this was my last Day. Loretta and I went back to the beach:

I had a great trip. I need to go through more of my pictures. I am happy to be home with My Sweetie but I sure do miss everyone back in North Carolina!

Friday Goofy

History according to the creationists?:

Sleeping Around

There was a thing going around on Facebook a while back where you click the U.S. states that you've visited and I think it said something like: don't count states that you've only driven through. I remember thinking, Why not just ask which states you've slept in? For me, Missouri is the only state I ever spent time in without sleeping there. We spent most of a day at the Gateway Arch park. I actually took what I think is probably my best photograph there, but because it featured my second husband, I left that picture with him. Anyway, I think I should get this all down before my brain stops working.
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So, I'm going to list the states (alphabetically) I've slept in with a few notes about each one:

1. Alabama ~ This was just a few years ago when my daughter and I took that cross country road trip. On the first leg of our return trip, we were taking some back roads thinking it was a nice scenic route, but it was SO slooow. Plus we had spent way too much time touring the Blue Ridge Parkway before we even really got started. We were so happy to finally make it onto a freeway. Then we trucked and trucked and finally gave out. Kate said "All I want to do is sit and drink beer and smoke." So we stopped in Tuscaloosa at what we called the "Ratmada Inn." It was very rundown and the carpet was so gummy or something I kept my socks on and they became gross. But we didn't complain because it was the only smoking hotel we could find quickly and we wanted Out Of The Car. We actually had a good time.



2. Arkansas ~ I've actually slept there a few times spanning many years and all three husbands. My first husband and I spent the night in Hot Springs on the way back from N.C. And my second and I stayed in some "resort" roadside place several times on our way to Illinois. Maybe it was in Blytheville but I'm not sure. And my current husband and I have been to Hot Springs.



3. California ~ Well this would be too long for much detail, but I have slept in San Diego, San Francisco, Huntington Beach, some business park suburb near San Francisco and in Lancaster which is a small air force town in the Mojave desert. That was for my brother's first wedding and my memory of that plays like a weird movie in my head, but I don't want to go there.



4. Colorado ~ I have been there on three different occasions, but, and I am not trying to do a husband theme here, Colorado is memorable because I went on my first trip there with both my first and second husband. At the same time. Except my second husband was not my second husband at the time because that would be illegal. And just weird as hell. Oh and the cities in which I slept were Colorado Springs (twice) and Boulder.



5. District of Columbia ~ While this isn't an actual state, it is a place where I have slept on two occasions: First grade on our way to New York to visit relatives. We didn't just sleep over though, we did a day of sightseeing, and for my daughter's senior year in high school. We got lucky and caught the cherry blossoms on that last trip. Mostly I went to see the Hope Diamond at the Smithsonian. Not sure why I was so into that at the time.



6. Florida ~ My first Florida trip is a tale worth telling. We had been in Durham about a year or two when a family from Connecticut moved into the apartment two doors down from us. We were all fascinated with them. At least I was. The girl was two years older than me and the boy was 5 or 6 years older. I was 13 or 14. One day I happened to walk out the back door and saw them packing a big camper on a large truck. I said, "Where are ya'll going?" They said Florida and somehow I talked them into including me. My parents said okay and gave me $50 or so and I packed some clothes and my toothbrush and off we went. I was a very strange child. It was a great trip. We went to Lion Country Safari and had lots of laughs. I guess I felt like I had to entertain them to justify my being there. And I did. My second trip was with a boyfriend, his dad and stepmom when I was 16 - to Disneyworld. My third trip was with My Sweetie in 2009.



7. Georgia ~ I went to a big concert event called "Champagne Jam" in Atlanta when I was 18 or 19 and think I slept there overnight but am not sure. I do remember cutting my foot on a beer tab - the old pull off kind. There was once a poster or album art or something which I can't find online that showed the crowd and I recognized my sleeping bag out on the field. My second trip there was with my first husband and toddler daughter. We stayed with my junior high/high school friend in Dunwoody - an Atlanta suburb. She had the perfect guest room. I'll never forget that.



8. Hawaii ~ My Sweetie and I went to Maui in 2004. That's where he spent his childhood, so it wasn't just a touristy thing. He showed me all his old haunts. That was a fun trip.



9. Illinois ~ My second husband was from an idyllic small town in southern Illinois, so I went there many times. That's where my daughter and I had our very first white Christmas. It actually began to snow about 6 p.m. on Christmas eve. I also once fell asleep in a beautiful old cemetery there. Years later I spent a few nights in a suburb of Chicago on a business trip.



10. Iowa ~ When the Motorola plant down here had a big reorganization back in the erly 90's, some of our friends went to Florida and some went to Iowa. My second husband's best friend went to Iowa. One year after an Illinois Christmas visit, we drove up to visit this guy and spent New Year's eve there at a party with other former Motorola friends. I always loved that guy. I should do a post about him.



11. Louisiana ~ Obviously the first thing that comes to mind is New Orleans. Not only have I been there many many times, I've actually been there with 6 different people. I still want to take my daughter. We had planned to do that for her 21st birthday, but that was when Katrina happened. I've also stayed in Shreveport twice. Once back in 1989 to go to the horse races on a Motorola group trip and also that was the last stop on the road trip with my daughter.



12. Michigan ~ Besides the 1982 SuperBowl in Pontiac when I stayed at the Ren Cen in Detroit, I have been there two other times, both were for the funerals of My Sweetie's grandparents.



13. Mississippi ~ Back when my daughter was a toddler, her Dad and I took a road trip to N.C. we stopped to spend the night in Vicksburg so that we could wake up on the Mississippi river.



14. Nevada ~ Las Vegas (too many to count) and Lake Tahoe (once). Why else would you go there?



15. New Mexico ~ My first husband and I were poorer than church mice. When my daughter was 2 or 3 his aunt and uncle invited us for a visit in Ruidoso. They were wealthy and retired and had a magnificent place, a "spread" really. We stayed in a guest house. They had chickens with fresh eggs, an apple orchard with homemade apple cider, a creek and some animals. It was all breathtakingly beautiful and something I will never forget.



16. New York ~ My first visit was as a child visiting Granny and some other relatives on Long Island. Then the two visits as a teenager to the city to see Duke games in Madison Square and New Years eve on Times Square. About twenty years later my visit with My Sweetie in Soho and then this year for my 50th birthday. All good times.



17. North Carolina ~ Well of course, I slept there. That's where I'm from. And I have slept all over that state.



18. Ohio ~ I had a rich Ohio boyfriend once. He was a Duke student, so that's how we met. He invited me to Ohio and we drove up to Michigan for that Superbowl. But I stayed several nights in Bowling Green.



19. Oklahoma ~ My first husband is from Oklahoma so I spent many nights there at his grandmother's house. She was one special lady.



20. South Carolina ~ Myrtle Beach was the place to go when I was a teen. I have spent many nights there, although to be fair, maybe sleeping isn't the right word: I was more likely passed out.



21. Tennessee ~ My daughter and I spent two nights in Memphis on our road trip partying on Beale Street. And I saw B.B. King!



22. Texas ~ That's where I live, so of course I've slept here. I've slept in Fort Worth, Dallas, Arlington, Carrollton, Richland Hills, North Richland Hills, Irving, Hurst, Euless, Keller, Grapevine, Azle, Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Galveston, Port Aransas and whatever towns I was in when I went camping on many lakes.



23. Virginia ~ In 2002 or 2003, Loretta and I went to Virginia Beach. It was great fun. A really neat little resort town with a free trolley bus that goes up and down the main road. We laughed a LOT! We still make jokes about that trip.

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I didn't realize this would be so long, but I enjoyed remembering all of it. And now I have it all written down so when I become even more senile, I'll have it. Except I probably won't be able to find it.

Getting Ready

I've been sort of an absent blogger lately because we have all this baseball going on and I am going on a trip on Saturday.
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The baseball is good so far, but I'm really excited about spending some time with Mom. I'll also get to see my brother, nephew, a cousin, two aunts and my best friend. I'm really looking forward to it.

On The Beatles (My Response to Ian's Post)

My old blogger friend Ian posted this post about The Beatles and as I was thinking about my response, I realized it was too big for a comment box and required its own post. (And ha ha Ian: by "old blogger friend" I am not calling you old, just referring to the age of our blog history. I bet you were wondering about that.)
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The Beatles, well, the idea of The Beatles in my brain is a kinda funny study of how my thought processes have evolved (devolved?) over the course of my lifetime. Here are the stages of my brain and the Beatles:

1. I'm a happy kid hearing The Beatles on the radio and singing along.



2. I'm a teenager and I'm all, "The Beatles? Who? Yesterday? Yeah, that describes them."



3. I'm a young adult. A Beatle has been murdered. The matryrization of The Beatles grows to a fever pitch. I rail against it. As usual, I stand firm and unbending against a wave. A wave that seems to have no cease.



4. I'm at the age of the "midlife crisis" which is really just a stage of questioning every belief and assumption you've ever had. I ask myself, "Are The Beatles that bad? Was I just disliking them to be unique?" I begin to listen to their songs instead of automatically flipping the channel.



5. I have passed the midlife crisis phase, have discarded former incorrect assumptions, accepted the value of other lifelong assumptions, and have even added new ones. The Beatles? Yeah, they still suck. It was nice to realize I didn't hate them all these years just to be a rebel with a pointless cause. They are just not all that. Now, The Stones? Yes, Ian. They rock.

It's Always The Little Things

There is a dime trapped inside of one of the dryer fins. I saw a little piece of it as I was pulling out laundry and reached for it and WHA LA! It went right down inside there. So now every load we dry, even if we were to dry a load of feathers, sounds like we have a jacket in there with a large zipper. A dime, A dime, My Kingdom for that dime!

Crazy Day

We had a crazy day which I can't really talk about on here, but I can tell you that we both got the crazy laugh fits at a restaurant tonight (Saturday night). The kind where your eyes are pouring water and your ribs hurt and you can't even look at each other. I imagine people in the restaurant thought we were on acid or something. (Do they still call it acid? I'm not up to date on the latest drug lingo.) But man we could NOT stop laughing. And it was the stupidest thing. It involved a gnat. And Loretta, And Heloise. Ouch! I started laughing all over again.

Another Annual Ritual

On Monday I did the horrid annual ritual of pulling out all my jeans to see if they still fit. I do this every year. I haven't worn jeans since my New York trip in April. I always think I won't be able to get into them. I was lucky this year. I haven't been lucky every year. Same thing happens every spring with my shorts: Will they still fit? I believe I've gained about 6 pounds over the summer because it's always too hot to move. Which sucks because I certainly have no use for 6 extra pounds. But the jeans fit fine, so I guess the 6 pounds is probably all over my head.
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It's funny how they always ask on these weight loss TV shows, "Why do you want to lose weight?" And the answer is always something intelligent sounding like: Diabetes runs in my family. Or: My blood pressure has gone up and I'm out of breath. But if anyone asked me why I would like to lose weight, my answer would sound so NOT intelligent and actually rather shallow: My head looks fat in photographs. The truth is, I am quite limber and don't get out of breath, I just have a fat head.
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My Sweetie has school on Monday and Wednesday nights so I'm thinking about taking a Zumba class on those nights. My daughter wanted us to take belly dancing together but I don't think there is a class that fits her schedule. Maybe she can Zumba with me on Mondays. I just need to do something about my big fat head. At least my jeans still fit. Good thing I don't wear hats.

Officials say beaver teeth are 7 million years old

Okay, so maybe this could be construed as false advertising, but since I'm not selling anything, I don't think it counts. Although I do like the idea of beavers being 7 million years old, this blog is not about really old beavers, it's about me. (Ha Ha! Insert horrid dirty joke here) Wait, I did not mean to go there. Seriously I did not. This is what happens when I have too many "Out Days."
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I had FIVE out days in a row. This is very unusual for me and also very tiresome. I do not like to go out five days in a row. I understand all you normal people reading this are rolling your eyes and asking yourself, "Huh?" But I like my IN days. I like them a LOT.
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Granted, I enjoyed most of them: Rangers baseball game, horse races, my Friday Meals on Wheels day out and Sunday visit with the in-laws for my MIL's birthday were nice, but I am all done in and want to be IN. I'd ideally like to stay in for maybe 10 days, but that's not going to happen. At least all day today I will have an in day and I will relish it.
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And now because I am yawning like a mad man, I will go to sleep and dream of in days with really old beaver teeth. Really? Beavers have been around for 7 million years? I'm surprised there are still any trees.

Friday Goofy

This is an actual real painting that I saw in person in real life and took a picture of. Here are my ideas for the title:

1. They are foolish to believe this bird can pull me.


2. They are foolish to believe I can pull this horse.


3. Look! The string hangs off the canvas!


4. I was stoned when I painted this.


5. Worst remake of The Defiant Ones ever.


6. I do not think this will get that tooth out.


7. Nothing in this picture makes sense.

What might you title this hideous painting? And if you say you actually like it, I will not believe you.

Funny Old Things (My 1950 Cookbook)

For years and years I thought I had drawn that dog. It looked like something I might have drawn and it felt like something I might have drawn. It was in Mom's 1950 Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book:

I always loved that the picture was upside down. Mom told me that I drew that picture and she told my brother that he drew that picture. At some point I thought she was just being diplomatic. I then realized that she probably had no idea who drew the picture, but she certainly knew it was either me or my brother. So she was always half right. Once I realized that the book was published in 1950, it seemed pretty obvious that it was my brother who drew the dog. He was born in 1957 and I was born in 1961.

In probably the early 1980's, I decided to "fix" the binding on this book. I used some high quality grey cloth duct tape that I had "ended up with" from the tv production company I had worked for. And by "high quality" I really mean just that because that duct tape binding job is still holding strong and steady after almost 30 years. That's good tape.

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I love the recipes. There are a few classics like white sauce or roux, but most of it is obsolete such as the cheese sandwich loaf, the Prune Cream Pie, and the strange dessert recipes using popular cookies of the time (I guess like how now people use Oreos in stuff). There's quite a list of lamb recipes and lamb is no longer a regular meat staple here. I think you can only get it at Christmas. Almost any food item in the book has a "...with dried beef" which says a LOT about the times. And the seasonings? Salt and pepper.

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Speaking of the times, 1950 was right at the beginning of the cold war and so there are no Russian foods in this cookbook. No beef stroganoff, no chicken kiev. They kept Italy also to a minimum: spaghetti and tetrazzini. No lasagne, no manicotti. They of course could not leave out the French because as is the case with ballet and war, most basic food terminology is French. And they keep it basic. There is no quiche. And hot? The things they call "hot" have a dash of chili powder. No cayenne or chipotle.

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Another funny thing is that foods that were the rage at one time have come and gone since this book was published. There is no mention of chateaubriand and the only mention of fondue is a bread and cheese casserole.

Another thing I like is the back of the book is so much darker. I guess the front got sun faded over time. That makes me think the book spent some time out in the open. But not in use, or the front cover would not be so faded.
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It's 61 years old. That's eleven years older than me. Many of the recipes sound kinda icky with a big use of ketchup and cracker crumbs along with the ubiquitous dried beef which as I mentioned earlier was a sign of the economic times and lots of the recipes are just weird, but I really really love that old cookbook. It makes me smile. Pretty much like that dog that I didn't draw.

The 5 Stages of Dishwasher Grief

1) Denial: Sure, I'll be able to fit all the dishes in there.
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2) Anger: Frikk!! There's no way I'm going to be able to fit all the dishes in there.
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3) Bargaining: Okay, maybe if I move this bowl to the bottom rack and tilt this lid that way...
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4) Depression: Oh,man.....this totally sucks. There is no physical way to fit everything in there. Now I'm going to have these leftover dishes here in the morning. Boooo.
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5) Acceptance: Oh well, okay. Looks like I'm going to have to leave this pot and these cups out tonight and just put them in tomorrow after I put away the clean dishes.

(photo by William Roesly for About.com)

Getting Started

On Friday I went to the fabric store and bought stuff for recovering the dinette chairs:

On Saturday, I got one done:

I didn't take any pics as I worked because I didn't really know what I was doing. That chair was the guinea pig of this project. I learned a lot. I think I have it all figured out now and will show some work in progress pics in subsequent posts. Sculpting foam with an electric knife is something that I hope I will improve at as I go along. So there will be more to come.

My Latest DYI

I've decided to recover all my dinette chairs. They came in "Bland Beige" and after 10 years A: They're worn and B is for boring. I took the seat off to study it, because that's how I roll, and lo and behold I discovered there were A LOT of staples on there.
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Ideally, I'd like to start from scratch and add some padding as opposed to just putting the new cover over the old cover. But the staples. I haven't counted them yet, but my best guess is eight hundred and seventy-three.
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It's not like I am incapable of removing 873 staples six times, it's just that I really think it will suck. I just noticed I said "will suck" instead of "would suck" so I guess that means I have made up my mind. As they say, "If you're going to do it, do it right." I will take pics as I go. The only fun part of it is, I'm going to pick out the cloth this afternoon. At least that part won't hurt my thumb

Random Thoughts on Autism

I was at the sink peeling boiled eggs and for no reason at all I started thinking of autism and how the studies always say the cases have increased and if that's really so, then I figured it had to be something people have been doing differently in the last 25 or 30 years.
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I thought and thought and thought and I could come up with only three things: non-stick pans, microwave ovens and pot smoking. Oh, wait, I think it's called weed now. So maybe one of those things is causing autism or maybe it's one of the four possible combinations of those three things. Or maybe it's something else altogether. But at least it made sense at the time. I mean, it's got to be something.

Picking a Groundhog Day

I read an article on Sunday where a guy said if he had could pick a recurring day it would be Christmas 1997. That made me think about the movie Groundhog Day and having a day to relive over and over. I think the article guy meant relive exactly tha day, but in Groundhog Day, Murray is aware that he is reliving it and chooses to do different things each time. That would be better.
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So then I was wondering which day I would choose. My first thought was October 9, 2010. I was running through all the fun different things I could do on that day before my daughter's wedding with Mom, my brother and my best friend here in town. Then I felt guilty and thought I should pick a day when Dad was still alive. I immediately thought of times when my whole original nuclear family was together doing fun things like beach trips. Then I felt guilty that that would not include my husband or daughter.
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After I thought about that for a bit, I realized that in the three years that My Sweetie and I were together before Dad died, there weren't any particularly spectacular days that I would relive and also they would have not included so many other special people. And I think if you have to keep reliving the same day, you would want a large cast of characters. So I think Dad would understand if I picked a day from the beach cottage in May of this year. I think I even know which day. But it really is a tough to pick one particular day to relive in a loop. What would yours be? It's certainly something interesting to think about.

Brain Fires

UPDATE (Sunday early AM): Mom is fine. They lost power for about 8 hours and are still without cable and phone but are fine with no property damage except some broken tree limbs. YAY!


So we almost died of heatstroke at the baseball game and left after the fourth inning.
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My daughter caught a summer cold and so my SIL and niece joined us at the ballgame.
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Mom thinks everyone is silly and they have no plan to evacuate.
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Mom's procedure went very well and that part is good.
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I hope Irene turns east and goes away.

Phondue Phreak Out (and other phalderals)

We took my daughter out to the fondue place for her 27th birthday and I was a pissy pissant and kept trying to stop being such a bitch and would try to have some quiet times, and it was tough on my poor Sweetie. (He's a saint, he really is.)

(I love the above picture because the table was HUGE and I had my "PHUN WITH PHOTOSHOP"

and made the table skinny to get us all in the picture.) I kept trying to be cool all night, but was having a hard time and after spending a long time thinking about it, I think I figured out that the reason I was such a pissy pissant was because Mom is having another procedure to get another tumor (that's "tumour" for my Canadian friends) out of her bladder on Thursday and hurricane Irene is scheduled to hit her house on Saturday. Maybe that's no excuse to be a pissy pissant on my daughter's birthday, but... Wait! they say when you end a sentence with "but" you've negated everything you just said. And by "they" I mean Dr. Phil.
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Anyway, I called my daughter to apologize and we are taking them to a baseball game Thursday night and we have killer seats and a parking pass, so I hope I can make up for everything and I hope Mom's procedure goes well and I hope hurricane Irene doesn't demolish her house.

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I love The Cat in the Hat's line: It is fun to have fun but you have to know how. And I know how to have fun, but I have a hard time doing it when I'm thinking about Mom's troubles. I want her cancer to go away and I want her house to not be blown away. Is that asking too much?

I'm A Dummy

I made a point of charging the battery for my camera on Saturday for our play date at Dave & Buster's and then we didn't take a single picture. How goofy is that? We did pretty well with coupons and got some fun goofy toys. It really was crowded, though, so we are going to go back on a week night.
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And here's an odd synchronicity thing: I saw a fondue place when we were out Saturday night and said, "I've always wanted to try one of those fondue places." Well, my daughter's birthday is Tuesday and and I told her to pick a place for us to take her out to dinner and she texted me today and wants to go to a fondue place downtown. I thought that was bizarre. But in a good way.
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My latest word goof was today. I was talking about hard candy and I said, "I really miss those tangerine androids." I meant "altoids." Tangerine androids. I'm a dummy.

Boudreaux Arlington Souxe (Sucks!)

I had never eaten at a Boudreaux Cajun Kitchen before. We were playing and having fun at Dave & Buster's in Arlington but decided not to eat there because of the crowd. We walked out and saw Boudreaux. Mmmm, we thought. Cajun food? Sounds good. We have missed our cajun food since Bedford's Razzoo's closed. I wanted to sample several things, so I ordered a bowl of shrimp gumbo, a side of dirty rice and some red beans, no rice.
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The first odd thing I noticed was the shrimp in the gumbo. The parts of the shrimp at the top of the gumbo were untouched by the broth, like the shrimp were dropped in at the last minute, not cooked with the gumbo. And the gumbo? Oh my. This so called cajun restaurant skimped so badly on the roux for the gumbo. The "roux" tasted like McCormick's brown gravy mix and tomato sauce. McCormick's brown gravy mix and tomato sauce are okay on their own I guess, but mixing them together and trying to pass them off as a cajun roux was a horrible joke. Oh and my shrimp was not completely peeled and I got shell in my mouth. Yuck!
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If you have a hankering for cajun food, do not go to Boudreaux Cajun Kitchen. At least not the one in south Arlington. Take the extra drive and go to Razzoo's downtown Fort Worth or try to find some place in Dallas run by some of the relocated New Orleans folks. But do not try this chain. You will be sorely disappointed.

Friday Play Time

I made this on Thursday with Play-Doh. I like to play. Speaking of playing, we are going to Dave & Buster's Saturday night. It's a fun arcade/bar/restaurant. And also speaking of playing, I went out partying with my daughter Monday night and had a blast. I'm going to post about that soon. We went to a bar, the the Movie Tavern, then a pool hall and then a club. And the club was a blast from the past. I can't wait to post about it. Anyway here's a pic from the pool place.:

I'm blurry.

Missing Dad

Today would have been Dad's 75th birthday. I wonder what he would have thought of facebook and cell phone use and texting. I wonder what he would have thought of DVRs. I bet he would have loved his DVR. I imagine him being so tickled to be able to pause the TV when the phone rang or to be able to pause the TV just to get a beer. I can imagine him complaining, "Why does Kate keep texting me? Why doesn't she just call?" Because my mother always asks me the same questions.
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I wonder what he would have thought of blogging? I bet he would have gotten into it and tried to hit on all the ladies. I can imagine him planning trips to go meet his blogger buddies. I know he would have been proud that we elected a black president, but he would be irritated by the current extreme partisan politics.
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He would have been very proud of our team. We've won two national championships since Dad died. I always think of Dad so much during basketball season. And when I hear certain songs, or anything by Pink Floyd. Dad missed a lot in the last thirteen years, but I'd like to think he has missed me the most, cause I sure do miss him. Happy Birthday, Dad.

Stupid Prepositions!

I originally was thinking of naming this post "Not Your Normal Thanksgiving." What happened was, I was thinking about something and then I thought: Now that's something to really be grateful for. And then I thought: Grateful for? You can't end a sentence with a preposition. Then I was trying to think of the proper way to say it. Is it: Now that's something for which to be grateful? And then I thought, well, no, it's "of which." And then I realized that wasn't right at all. So if it's "for which" and not "of which" it still sounds stupid. It also sounds not like anything anyone would actually say. And what kind of a word is "which?"And the worst part is I can't even remember what it was that I should be so grateful for. I mean, for which I should be so grateful. I think that's what I mean. I wonder what it was?

College is Tough!

I decided to resume keeping up with my spoonerisms and other general word flubby things and I had two last week within just a few days. One was a word switch/mix up and the other one was really weird, where I totally reordered the sounds of a word. That one cracked me up. I think I laughed for five minutes.
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I had done something goofy and My Sweetie was teasing me and then he started laughing. I said, "Hey! Now you're laughing at me. That's just putting wound in the salve!" I meant "salt in the wound" but it went all awry somewhere between my brain and my mouth.
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Friday after lunch, I was sitting at the bar doing my crossword puzzle. 26 across was "----RED" and the clue was "like some college professors." I thought, "Oh, that's easy! NEUTERED!"
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(I'm assuming you all knew the word was "tenured.")

I Feel Special

My cell rang a few minutes ago. It was a local number with no name. I answered it and it was one of my Meals on Wheels clients. She asked me if tomorrow she could give me some money and I would get her some groceries. I told her that would be no problem at all as I had already planned to go the grocery store after my lunch tomorrow (after my deliveries). I thought it was sweet that she chose me over her other people. It made me feel special.

The Barney Experiment

Because of the extreme weather we have been having Barney back in the house for most of the day. If you've been reading here for a long time, you know that Barney was a house cat and then we discovered he was peeing all over the place. And no it wasn't because he had a dirty litter box. I believe it was because he was partly feral when we found him and he had not been properly trained by his mother.
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So to recap the whole Barney thing: Our cats lived in the house and as we started finding pee, we thought it was one of the old dying cats. As time progressed and we had those cats put to sleep, we moved Barney's litter box and food and water into the garage and put a pet door in the door to the garage. Well Barney was the cat peeing in the house. So we closed off the pet door to the garage and bought a small doghouse and moved Barney's stuff to the back yard. Well that didn't work out. Possums were eating his food and he got into a $500 cat fight. So we put a pet door from the garage to the back yard. We put his food and water and a litter box as well as his dog house in the garage. I even bought him a heater for winter and he could go outside when he wanted to.
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So now because of the heat, we have been having him in from noon to 6:00 am. My Sweetie lets him out when he wakes up at six, and I let him back in when I wake up at noon. We put a litter box and his food and water in the laundry room. So far he has peed in the litter box twice and in the house nonce. I guess he does most of his peeing outdoors between six and noon.
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We are keeping our fingers crossed and if all goes well and he doesn't pee on anything by September 1st, I'm going to reopen the pet door to the garage and give him full access from the house to the garage to the yard. Hopefully, if all this pans out, he will become an indoor/outdoor cat of his own choosing. Hopefully he won't bring any lizard kills indoors or be followed by some strange animal. For now, we are just waiting, watching and hoping. Wish us luck!

Where's My Mellow?

In the last ten years before Dad died at the ridiculously young age of 62, he was a fun pleasant mellow fellow. I know that everyone that reads this blog knows I adored Dad, but he was not always pleasant. Well, not always pleasant to others. He was always sweet to me with very few exceptions and I was probably equally to blame in some of those because I was a hothead myself at certain ages. Dad was a terrible husband. Dad also made many mistakes when it came to my brother. Both Mom and my brother always say that I was the lucky one. Dad had a terrible temper when he was younger and would fly off the handle. It was just never directed at me. But about ten years before he died, he had totally mellowed out. I assumed it was a natural part of the aging process.
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So either I was wrong about mellowing being a natural part of the aging process, or I am just not normal. I've noticed that I have become less tolerant about certain things. The last time I stopped to pick up a rib dinner at the great rib place, the country music felt like it was stirring my brain and thumping me in the eyeball. I saw the bartender sit the bag down. After about four minutes I asked, "Is that mine?" She looked at my beer and replied, "I didn't realize you were ready to go." I said, "Oh, I am so ready to go. I hate country music." The guy next to me laughed. I continued, "You don't understand. My brain processes country music the same as it would a baby crying on an airplane." The bartender and the guy next to me thought this was all funny and I was not kidding. I wanted to GET OUT of that building.
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I have also become worse and worse about children. Today's parents seem to be clueless and have lost all control and sometimes I just want to shake them and yell, "MAKE IT STOP!" Not the poor kids. The parents.
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And because I've realized that my tolerance is slipping, I started thinking about the etiquette doyens who pretty much say that manners are what separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom. I guess I am becoming more like the rest of the animal kingdom. I'm surprised. I really thought I'd be getting my mellow on. But apparently I am going wild.

The Seven Year Switch

I had always heard that your taste buds change very seven years, but had not given it too much thought. Until this week. I've become a spinach freak. I think about spinach a lot. When I was thinking about spinach and wondering why I want it all the time, it was pretty amazing because I never ate spinach at all until about twenty years ago, and that was only when it was part of something else like quiche florentine. I worked my way up (or down maybe with fewer ingredients) to creamed spinach and finally to just spinach. I love it.
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I've also become a big fan of cooked carrots. Now they do have to be part of something else, like a soup or stew and they have to be really really cooked down, but I love them. Cooked carrots used to be my least favorite cooked vegetable. For 49 years. I really detested them. I used to forfeit my dessert at daycare rather than eat cooked carrots. I always picked them out of canned soups and ate around them in stews.
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I can also eat raw celery now. I used to think raw celery tasted like poison. So I was thinking about all these taste changes and because I am so terrible at math, I thought, Well I'm not anywhere near a seven year thing. Then I remembered that 49 is 7 x 7. And I was 49 until April.
So I guess that old saw is true.
Mmmmm, spinach.

Birthday Twins

(photo from Oprah.com. Please don't sue me.)

I caught the Oprah rerun last week with Barbra Streisand. As a surprise, Robert Redford shows up. Robert Redford walks out trying to rock his 70's The Way We Were hair by wearing what really looks like a wig. I was so embarassed for him.

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The thing is, Robert Redford and Dad were born on the exact same day. Seeing a man Dad's age or I should say, what would have been Dad's age, wearing a wig that was a facsimile of his hair when he was sexy in the 70's, really made me think. Firstly it made me think how cool Dad was to embrace being an old dude. Many people have said Dad looked somewhat like Papa (Ernest) Hemingway. I thought Dad looked pretty cool. Secondly it made me think, what if Dad were still alive and tried to rock his 70's hair? And then I had a good laugh. See, Dad's 70's hair was that really goofy whitemanfro like the dad from "The Brady Bunch." Then as I thought how horrible that would be, I realized that Robert Redford's wig really wasn't much better.